By
Carey Shea, September 12, 2008
More than three months after his scheduled execution, Michael Dean Overstreet, the man convicted of raping and murdering a Franklin College student in 1997, still sits on death row in a Michigan City, Ind. prison.
Due to a lengthy appeals process, the decision to stay his execution may have extended his life by up to 10 years.
Nearly 11 years ago, on the night of Sept. 30, 1997, freshman Kelly Eckart was on her way home after finishing her shift at the Franklin Wal-Mart when she was abducted by Overstreet. It was four days before police found her body dumped in a ravine in Brown County.
Overstreet’s trial began on May 1, 2000. He was found guilty on May 18, when a jury recommended that he receive the death penalty.
Defense Attorney Marie F. Donnelly filed a stay of execution for Overstreet on May 9, just three weeks before he was scheduled to be executed.
She argued that in earlier trials evidence of Overstreet’s mental illness was not presented, and that the jury had been biased against Overstreet because friends and family of the victim wore pins with pictures of the murder victim in court during the proceedings.
Federal Judge Phillip Simon granted the stay of execution, and Overstreet will continue with his appeals on a federal level.
Eckart’s mother, Connie Sutton, has spent the last decade fighting to keep her daughter’s memory alive. She has started a scholarship fund for students attending Franklin College from Brown County and has fought for legislation allowing the families of victims to give impact statements at sentence hearings.
Dubbed “Kelly’s Law,” such impact statements are made after conviction and gives families a chance to address the judge and the convicted felon one last time.
After years of trials, court dates and legislation, the news of a stay of execution did not surprise Sutton or her family.
“I took it in stride because we knew it was coming,” said Sutton. “We’re done at the state level so we’ll start the whole process again at the federal level.”
According to Sutton, Overstreet, now 41, will not see another jury during the federal appeals process. Instead attorneys will go before another judge and attack certain parts of the trial to weaken the case for capital punishment.
“They’re trying to play with words to make somebody feel sorry for him,” Sutton said.
Going to the federal level means many more court dates. According to Sutton, it will be at least a year before Overstreet’s case comes up before the federal judge, and there is a possibility of additional appeals after that.
Sutton said that her family was told in the beginning the hearings would take a long time. A decade later they may only be halfway through the process.
